Efficiency directive ‘needs smart spec’

Metering companies fear that the Energy Efficiency Directive will be hamstrung without minimum smart meter functions, says Vic Wyman.

Krzysztof Gierulski could do with a break. He and colleagues in the European Commission’s energy directorate have been working through their holidays to try to persuade MEPs and European Union member states to approve the proposed Energy Efficiency Directive (EED).

Without action, EU energy consumption is projected to hit 1,842 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe) by 2020, and the bloc has set itself the target of reducing this figure by 20 per cent. The problem is that Europe is on track to achieve only half this.

Gierulski is optimistic that an EED will be passed, with Denmark keen to get the European Parliament, the European Council of Ministers and the Commission to agree a directive by the end of June, when its EU presidency ends.

Changes pose threat

However, the Parliament and the council want to water down the EED. In April, the council proposed cutting the 2020 target for reducing energy consumption from 151.5 mtoe to 58.1 mtoe.

The council has also proposed relaxing the requirements for metering and billing set out in article 8 of the EED. Critics say this will drastically reduce the 26.5 mtoe of energy savings that were forecast to result from rolling out smart meters.

The European Smart Metering Industry Group (Esmig) fears that the EED will prove a lost opportunity to ensure that fully featured smart meters are installed throughout Europe.

It has called for article 8 to set minimum standards for meter functions, such as a European-standard home interface to allow communication between components and devices. Without an interface, many potential benefits will not be realised, says Esmig.

Esmig has also called for annex VI of the EED to require secure transmission of data through two-way interfaces, so that consumers can check their historic consumption over a range of timeframes, in both local currencies and units of energy consumed. The council has rejected this.

John Harris, vice president and head of regulatory affairs at meter manufacturer Landis & Gyr in Europe and chairman of the Esmig regulatory and policy working group, told a recent Esmig meeting in Brussels that the industry already had most of what was needed. “You don’t have to make any of it up. A lot of it’s already there,” he said

However, Esmig offered Sweden as a cautionary tale. Smart meters were deployed in Sweden without consumer interfaces, resulting in later expensive refits.

Gunnar Lorenz, head of networks at Europe’s electricity industry association Eurelectric, countered: “In very many member states there is not a clear mandate for smart meters.”

The UK’s plan

The UK has a national plan, for which it is seeking Commission approval, for smart gas and electri­city meter installations from 2014 to the end of 2019. However, some observers are puzzled by some ideas, such as a recent suggestion that the meters must have full ­functionality but that consumers would not have to use that functionality.

Observers are also mystified by the UK government’s support in the council for watering down the EED’s metering provisions, because the UK programme matches the ­Commission’s thinking.

Around Europe, concern remains about regulatory uncertainty and about the sharing of smart meter programme costs and benefits. Electricity distributors, for example, may have to invest for little direct reward. National regulators are likely to be the final arbiters, although the Commission says that the customer must not pay.

Smart metering ‘unsexy’

Most in the industry agree that smart metering will not deliver the promised benefits unless consumers are won over, partly though smaller bills. The UK consumer organisation Consumer Focus says that the UK government has failed to spell out the benefits for consumers and that many poor people will be unable to benefit by, for example, changing their consumption patterns.

“There has to be a clear benefit for the customer,” says Ralf Conrads, smart metering research and development project manager at German electricity and gas firm EWE, which is nearing the end of a one-year smart metering trial. “Smart metering is unsexy to the customer.”

A recently completed Esmig study of dozens of pilot programmes around the world concludes that winning customer involvement entails long-term promotion, information and education, and feedback.

Vic Wyman is a freelance journalist

This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 18 May 2012.

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